There is a saying in the "Zhou Yi": "Good is not enough to become famous, and evil is not enough to destroy the body." ”
But what is goodness? What is evil?
How to define good and evil?
Can an act really only be judged by good and evil?
Can a person really only use good and bad to gauge?
Extortion is evil, but the purpose of extortion is not for their own pleasure, but to help a helpless mother and daughter.
"The Diary of a Bad Boy" is such a book that explores human nature. From the perspective of a pair of twins, experience the cruelty of war and reveal the darkness of human nature little by little.
The Diary of a Bad Boy is the debut novel of female writer Yageta Christopher, which shocked the literary world as soon as it was published, winning the European Book Award.
The author, Agota Kristof, was born in 1935 in K. Szeg, Hungary, and after the 1956 Hungarian riots, he took refuge with his husband and son-in-law in the Swiss city of Neuchtel and settled there. During her exile, she was devastated by the flames and tasted homesickness, which was the period of exile that gave birth to the cold, realistic and thought-provoking qualities of Jagota's works.
The story takes place in a city occupied by foreign troops. With food shortages and a difficult life, a young mother reluctantly takes a pair of twin boys to her mother who lives in the countryside. And this "grandmother" is not only illiterate, but also very dirty, miserly, fierce, and may even be a murderer.
Female author Jagatta Christopher
<h1>shift</h1>
At first the twin boys were clean and innocent. But before long, they began to be insulted and bullied by other people in the village for no reason. At first, they would cry and be sad, but their mother had left, and grandma was a cold-blooded person, and no one kissed and loved them like their mother. They went from loving babies to lonely children. Gradually, they stopped crying. They are two brothers, relying on each other and growing up together.
In order to make themselves not care about the abuse, they began to practice the abuse. They insult each other with the most disgusting, filthy words until the insults do not work on them.
In order to prevent themselves from being afraid of being hurt, they began to practice enduring the pain of flesh and skin. In between finishing their work, they whipped each other fiercely, and even did not stop until the skin opened the flesh. In the end, they succeeded, and they became less sensitive to physical pain.
In order to protect themselves from being harmed by others, they began to practice cruelly. At first, they just disemboweled the frogs, abused the cats and dogs in the back, and finally extended their claws to other people.
Seeing this, my heart ached. Innocent children are finally forced into evil children by the cruel reality of life. All this is the fault of the war. Once peace is lost, those friendly and friendly people disappear without a trace, replaced by coldness and fierceness.
Perhaps, life is like this, whether you want to or not, she will force you to grow, force you to change, and even force you to look like someone you hate. She never gives you a choice or cares about your wishes, that's how she does what she thinks.
Someone once asked the author, are you writing about real things?
She said: "I wanted to write, but I never dared to write about reality, because reality is a thousand times more cruel than this." ”
This reminds me of the bitter root in Yu Hua's "Alive", who was just born without a mother and relied on his father for his life. As a result, he was less than 4 years old, and his father also left him because of an accident. Fortunately, he still hurt his grandfather. Maybe it was too bitter, and finally he died because he ate a bowl of edamame.
Living in material abundance now, it is difficult for me to imagine how hard it will be to make edamame a treasure. I have not experienced the war, but I am full of fear of the war. Every time I see these books about the war, I feel heart-wrenching, like reading "The Diary of a Bad Boy".
<h1>Persistent</h1>
Although the twins in Jagota's pen have become "evil children" in the eyes of others, I feel that they are not completely blackened. I prefer to describe them as a combination of angels and demons. As we often say, "One thought becomes a Buddha, the other becomes a demon." ”
Their evil, mostly, is for their own protection. But they are not bad by nature.
In order to get the pens and notebooks they want, they are penniless instead of stealing and robbing, but are willing to exchange their labor for them.
In order to understand the hardships of the beggar's life, they pretended to be beggars to beg, but they distributed the money they finally begged to others.
In their eyes, there is still no class, no stereotype in the eyes of adults. They do what they want and do what they think is right.
<h1> However, how should the right or wrong of a thing be measured? </h1>
Not long after coming to this border town, they met the little white rabbit, a girl who was equally bitter. She and her mother depended on each other, and her mother lay in bed for many years, and at a young age she could only exchange her body for what she wanted.
This reminds me of what Yumo said in Zhang Yimou's "Thirteen Pieces of Jinling": "If there is a choice, who wants to be a prostitute." ”
Perhaps it is precisely because of this helplessness that the mother of the little white rabbit pretended to be deaf until her death, pretending not to hear the discussion and insults of outsiders. Maybe you would say it's an ear-covering, self-numbing. However, in the environment at that time, being able to paralyze yourself was also a good way to get rid of it.
The little white rabbit mother and daughter who are oppressed by others have a particularly difficult life, no one likes them, no one is willing to help them, and even treat them as the object of bullying.
Until, the little white rabbit met the twins. And the way the twins help the little white rabbit is also staggering.
He chose to extort the priest, and even to extort it in a peaceful manner, and gave all the money extorted from the priest to the little white rabbit.
<h1>Why, perhaps, the priest and not everyone else? </h1>
That's because the priest, who outwardly prays with devotion, is actually very moral. He also did something forbidden to the little white rabbit when no one was there. However, he could not let others know of his dirty deeds, otherwise his image would be destroyed and no one would come to him to pray. And this is also the reason for the twins' blackmail.
Sometimes, I think the twins are still very principled in doing things. They never hurt the innocent, and they never harm anyone. He always punishes those who make mistakes by the sins of others themselves.
They are always so happy to help others, so happy that they make people's backs chill.
Later, the house of the little white rabbit mother and daughter caught fire, and people found the bodies of their mother and daughter under the ruins. Everyone thought they had accidentally set fire to the thatched hut, but they didn't know that the house was lit by twins.
That day, the twins went to look for the little white rabbit, but found her lying pale on the bed, covered with blood and white liquid, and dead. This time, the mother of the little white rabbit did not have the little white rabbit, she had no courage to face the next few days, begging the twins bitterly, protecting the secret for her, and killing her to free her.
The twins agreed, so they set the fire. Perhaps it was the real despair of life, in the whole process, the little white rabbit's mother did not make a cry, she was bent on death. With this fire, in addition to the little white rabbit mother and daughter, there is also the unknown secret.
They are so ruthless, like frogs of the past. Later, they also ruthlessly wiped Grandma's neck with a knife, also because Grandma could not endure the torture of stroke, and begged them to do so.
<h1>People are always asked to sit on good deeds, but sometimes I wonder, what kind of criteria do we use to judge good and evil? Where is the boundary between good and evil? </h1>
For example, the priest in "The Diary of a Bad Boy", although he did something wrong to the little white rabbit, he still accepted the homeless as always, even if he himself was too tight, but still distributed the few relief funds to the poor people.
People in life, like the characters of The Songts, are not perfectly good, nor are they utterly evil. Some, however, are wandering on the edge of good and evil, struggling between good and evil.
In fact, sometimes, the distance between good and evil is only between your thoughts.
And the criterion for judging good and evil is not in the mouth of the present world, but in the eyes of future generations.
As Ming Lou said in "The Pretender": "My good or bad, a hundred years later, will be judged by future generations." ”
Perhaps, some things are incomprehensible and incomprehensible in the eyes of people today. But after a hundred years, it may become a great feat. For example, the Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal, which was repaired by the Sui Emperor at that time.
Sometimes, people always say, so-and-so doing such a thing, is he not ashamed?
Actually, I would say that they won't.
Because each of us is acting according to the self-discipline in our own brains, doing what we think is right. The difference is that some people's code of conduct is consistent with the behavior of the public, while others are contrary to each other.